— Aster —

The light of the crystal engulfed the world. I felt as though I was floating. It was warm and peaceful as though being caressed by a trusted lover. Slowly, I opened my eyes to see a brilliant pink world. I was in the warm embrace of life when. “Welcome Moonflower.”

A small voice, beautiful and melodically ethereal. I opened my mouth to try and speak but nothing came out. ‘Who are you?’ The thought slipped out and seemed to carry in the world

“We are your eternal companions.” The voice from everywhere said.

‘Eternal companion what does that mean?’

A small laugh echoed “We are the ones that help and guide.” A small round creature approached. I felt nothing but trust and love from it. It was odd I had never felt emotions projected onto me before.

‘Why are you here?’

The creature began to circle me. “To help.” The creature then took the form of a little cat. “Now little Moonflower. Speak your soul.”

‘What do you mean? How does one speak of their soul?’ There was no answer, just a quiet look from the creature in cat form. The cat refused to answer any of my thoughts. Eventually, I began to realize it was waiting for something. I began to think about what the creature asked. ‘Speak my soul?’ I still don't know what that means, maybe it means ‘What do I want out of life?’ I was now thinking back on my life. What do I really want? A word fell out of my mouth. “Faster.” I had no real idea what that meant or why I said it. I had intended to say something else but as I opened my mouth that one word just fell out.

The cat looked up at me and grinned and the impossibly wide cat smiled “Faster. What an interesting Soul.” The Voice seemed amused by what my mouth had said. The cat then jumped onto my chest. “Now my little Moonflower, a gift for the beginning of your journey.” The cat touched my ever-evolving tattoo causing it to appear. A new light began to glow around me. The light was quickly fading. All the lights dimmed and the cat faded with it.

As the light faded I found I couldn't breathe. It took a moment to learn the reason why. I was in the water. My lungs burning, I swam towards the light at the surface breaking through. Cold air flew into my lungs. The girl broke the surface behind me gasping for air. We swam to the edge of the pool seeing the instructor smiling with Jane and Kyle holding towels. We took the towels drying off.

“How long do you think you were in there?” the instructor asked

I froze. If the other times were a few weeks then how long was this?

The instructor must have seen the panicked look on our faces “You were in there for exactly five minutes. It always takes five minutes. No matter how long you think you're in there.” That’s a relief. I wonder why it’s always five minutes.

“What was that place?” The girl asked. She always seemed to ask the questions I was thinking of.

“Simply put it's the realm of power... Well, we think anyway. It's where we go to gain the strength to level and learn.” Instructor seemed a little hesitant about the explanation.

Unable to keep my mouth shut. “So you don't really know?”

“No, not really. No one really does.” the instructor turned toward the Crystal and gestured “Could be gods. An ancient race left them. They could have grown on their own. Something to do with monsters but we do not know.”

“We just know the small ones heal, and the large ones grant us power. Among other things” Jane added.

“So that's why almost every town has one.” the girl added.

“Exactly!” Instructor was excited. “Now take a look at your status again.” We opened our screens.

Name: Aster Datura

Level: 1

Class: Moonflower

Energy Type: Rogue

Animal Specialization: Cat

SubClass: N/A

Skills:

Combat:

Dagger: 6

1-Handed Swords: 1

Throwing Knives: 2

Chakrams: 4

Magic:

Mana Control: 3

Cats Eye: 3

Shadow: 1

Light: 1

Other:

Lock picking: 1

Pickpocket: 5

Trap making: 1

Trap Detection: 1

Stealth: 2

First Aid: 2

Tailoring: 1

Trap Disarming: 1

Words:

Soul: Faster

I looked at the screen and saw that two things to change the first was my class had changed to Moonflower the second was, I now had a Word ‘Faster’. What does this mean?

Right, when I was about to ask “No I don't know how to activate your new word, no I don't know what it means, having the same name as a skill as someone else has doesn't mean it does the same thing.” the instructor paused and looked at us to make sure we understood. “Also sometimes the skill is passive and is always helping you out so if you can't seem to figure it out then it is probably passive.”

The girl looked up excitedly and said, “I leveled to two!”

This brought a genuine smile to Instructor “Congratulations! This rarely happens at this point but will be a great help. Oh did either of your classes change?” we both nodded “Okay show me your screens.” we did. Instructor looked them over “Moonflower and Wanderer” he said to himself “So I have no idea what yours means Aster but girl you will probably travel a lot.”

“You really don't know what they mean?” I asked. How could they not know what they mean? They taught us.

“Honestly, no but based on the name you can usually guess. For all, I know you could end up literally being a flower.” You know what ok sure I’m a flower got it. For now, I need to focus on the present.

“Now. Don't show them to anyone and you have to hide the information you don't want to be seen.”

We can hide things on our screen? Might as well ask seeing as I apparently know nothing. “How?”

“Simple as your opening the screen, think about what you want to hide. Also if you click the button at the bottom it will set everything hidden except your name, level, job, and sub-job. Oh, and screens can’t lie sadly.”

“Why sadly?” I asked but it wasn't the instructor who answered me.

“We could change our job or name when on missions in case we were caught.”Instructor looked towards the girl, impressed by the insight.

“And we would be able to lie and accept much harder missions for the better rewards.” Instructor added.

I agreed it would be very beneficial to us, after a moment of thought.

“Now that you are no longer in the lessons. Your first missions will start tomorrow. Your rooms will no longer be in the training area. We have taught you all we can for now. ”

Jane and Kyle stepped forward “Follow us.”

We were brought back to the original Hall where the girl at the reception desk sat reading a book. Jane informed us. “This is the reception area. This is Delilah. I’m sure you met when you joined.”

“Hello again.” Delilah said, waving “I will be handling missions, follow me to the mission room behind me.” Delilah placed her book down and stood. Leading us in the room behind her. In the room were a bunch of cubbies with what looked to be experience eggs in them. In front of each egg was a screen displaying the contents of a mission. “Each cubby is a mission. As you can see there are hundreds of requests just for this city. They are arranged by rank. You are currently ranked zero.” She pointed to the lower two rows. “These are the missions you may choose from.” She pulled out two small books “Please place a drop of blood on the cover.” She handed us needles.

As blood fell on the books they began to glow. “These books will track both your ranks and all the missions you have been on in detail.” She now turned very serious “Do not lose track of them they will serve to determine your reward and rank. If you lose them your rank is reset back to zero for three months until you can retake the rank test. It will also cost ten gold.”

At the ten gold cost, I was visibly shocked. A concerning thought passed through my head and was vocalized by the girl. “Why does it record in detail what we did in the missions?”

“It’s actually a fairly vague language. Mission begin date, completion date, failed, succeeded, where you were when completed and how. Pretty much a quick summary of everything each mission is about half a page. It is really just tracking basic Mission information. It also proves that you completed the mission. You'll understand after your first mission.” she then pulled us back to the mission room “Now to accept a mission please choose one of the appropriate ranks. You may choose up to one rank above your current rank. If it is accepted, it will be up to the worker's discretion whether or not to let you. But once chosen please grab the egg and bring it to me. I will write the mission in my log and stamp your book indicating the start. Remember most have a timeline and you can only accept three at a time.” We both acknowledged her explanation. “Now after Jane and Kyle show you your rooms come back and choose your first missions.”

We both were excited about finally getting to be Rogues. We followed Jane and Kyle to a hall next to the receptionist’s desk. After the first turn, we saw the doors to the roof and across the hall, there were our new rooms one hundred three and one hundred four.

“One O’three is you girl and One O’four is you Aster. There is a change of clothes inside and a chest for storing things.” at the change of clothes I suddenly remembered I was still in wet clothes. Jane tossed us our room keys I went in to change.

The room was a small stone room with a twin-sized bed, a dresser, a wooden chest at the end of the bed, and a couple of floating shelves around the room. “Wow, I think I can almost touch both sides of the room.”

Opening the chests, I found a second set of clothes very similar to my current set. Plus, some other useful items, such as a clothesline, some extra sets, lock picks, and a few bolts of cloth. Stripping off my clothes, I grabbed the clothesline and hung it in my room to dry my clothes. Grabbing the change of clothes I had to admit they fit me better than my old ones. I put the jeans on and a plain grey shirt was provided for me. Looking around I also found a nice hooded coat. The clothing was very simple and was very similar to my normal clothes just better put together. The fabric was different though, more like spandex. After dressing I re-equipped myself heading back out to get my first mission.

I made my way over to Delilah. When she saw me she smiled asking “You ready? The girl already got a mission and left. Just go in the back and grab an egg.”

Heading to the back to view the zero rank missions. After reading over some of the missions I was surprised. Turns out ninety percent of the missions were simple delivery missions. The others were gathering missions which would have to either be bought in town or go out and get them myself. I preferred to stay in the city. After reading the descriptions I decided on a messenger mission. I felt extremely overconfident for a Mission like this but I chose a simpler one that was right around the corner at the magic hat shop. It was where I had begun my journey recovering a little cat hatpin. The thought of this made me laugh. Thinking everything was coming full circle.

I was to gather the item to deliver it. Pick it up in an alley then deliver it to the shop. Here was the trick. I was not to be noticed dropping anything off or picking up. Fun!

I brought the mission to the receptionist. “A rank one mission. Ambitious for your first time.” she stared at me narrowing her eyes before “What is your stealth level?”

She must need to know I can handle it. “Two”

Delilah was still hesitating “Are you sure? This is going to be hard. This needs to be quick and fast. You only have one hour to get to the drop point and four hours to deliver. That shop is not close, and you are not to be seen by the dropper or the receiver.” She reviewed the mission again. “Might be more than you can chew.”

“I got this.” I don’t know where the confidence came from, but I felt I could do it.

Delilah sighed “Okay. Hand over your book.” She pulled out a stamp as I handed her my book.

“Oh!” I pulled out my dagger “How do I use the Magic Weapon?” No one had told me or explained anything so I needed to ask.

Delilah looked at the dagger “I see you won the ball. Okay, it's very simple you just channel mana through the gem to activate. But that won’t work for those.”

“Why?”

“Those are blanks.”

“Blanks?! Are they unfinished weapons?” I was startled and stared at the beautiful dagger.

Delilah laughed “No. No. Not at all. You just need to channel energy to the gem. Then focus solely on the weapon. When you think the amount of energy is sufficient, speak the name of the ability you want. Be careful though it may not be quite what you expect, also the more energy you channel the stronger the ability. Each item gets one ability per gem.” Delilah was smiling but looked a little envious at the dagger.

“How much do they cost?” I was now wondering, staring at the knife.

“About ten gold per gem.”

Ten gold?!?! That means the sword cost thirty gold. This was more money than I had ever seen. A hundred gold was enough to purchase a house. I had received items worth roughly half that.

“But here is the thing. If the skill created is no good you could ruin the value making it worthless to sellers.”

“Better not screw it up.”

“Better not. Oh! These weapons have an extra ability. They can be returned automatically after a few hours to the one registered if you focus on them. Side note it takes a lot of time and energy to summon it. So do it in a safe place.”

Well, that will make it easier to recover the rings. “How do I register it? “ Pulling out the chakrams

“Place some blood on the inside of the ruins and say mine.”

“Seriously?” She is probably messing with me.

“To release you say ‘you are no longer mine, you are free.’ Also, place blood on the rims at the same time.”

“Who came up with these things?”

“No idea.”

What about them being stolen? “How would I break a registration on something I acquired?”

“Place blood on the runes. You will have to overpower the registration by channeling as much energy as you can through it canceling the runes. Be careful since the owner can sense this. It may also kill you depending on the item's quality. It may also break the weapon.”

“Huh…” I should go ahead and register them. Beginning the ritual placing blood inside the runes on the chakrams I cut my finger rubbing the runs with blood speaking. “Mine.” The blade glowed and then faded. I felt a small link to the weapon so I would always know where it was. “Neat!”

“Last thing chakrams gems are hidden in design patterns, very small. Those probably only have one each.”

“That’s good then.” I decided to wait before creating skills but immediately started to channel my energy into the daggers gem. I was now splitting my energy into one stream to my eyes and one to the knife. I felt the energy enter the gem falling into a vast empty chasm. I felt a little drained doing this. It was an odd sensation feeling where your energy is draining from.

Putting the weapons in their sheathes I continued to flow energy to the gem when Delilah asked “Are you ready to start?”

I was pulled back from my thoughts “Yes I am!”

“Good.” She stamped my book and handed it back “Time is kept inside the book you now have fiftey-five minutes till the drop.”

I just stared confused.

“What you thought time would stop just because the mission wasn’t accepted yet. The stamp just notifies the person that someone accepted the mission. Sometimes it has already started regardless of whether or not it has been accepted. Now put on your mask and go”

In a panic I gathered all the shadows I could and shoved them inelegantly on my face. Now covered, I grabbed the egg and my book back from Delilah running for the road. I got to the door, opened it, and started to climb.